The digitalization and public crisis responses of small and medium enterprises: Implications from a COVID-19 survey

Hai Guo (), Zhuen Yang (), Ran Huang () and Anqi Guo ()
Additional contact information
Hai Guo: Renmin University of China
Zhuen Yang: Renmin University of China
Ran Huang: Renmin University of China
Anqi Guo: Renmin University of China

Frontiers of Business Research in China, 2020, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-25

Abstract: Abstract The COVID-19 outbreak is a global crisis that has placed small and medium enterprises (SMEs) under huge pressure to survive, requiring them to respond effectively to the crisis. SMEs have adopted various digital technologies to cope with this crisis. Using a data set from a survey with 518 Chinese SMEs, the study examines the relationship between SMEs’ digitalization and their public crisis responses. The empirical results show that digitalization has enabled SMEs to respond effectively to the public crisis by making use of their dynamic capabilities. In addition, digitalization can help improve SMEs’ performance. We propose a theoretical framework of digitalization and crisis responses for SMEs and present three avenues for future research.

Keywords: COVID-19; Digitalization; Dynamic capabilities; Public crisis; Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (57)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s11782-020-00087-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:fobric:v:14:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1186_s11782-020-00087-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://fbr.springeropen.com/

DOI: 10.1186/s11782-020-00087-1

Access Statistics for this article

Frontiers of Business Research in China is currently edited by Jiye Mao, Ziliang Deng and Steven Shuye Wang

More articles in Frontiers of Business Research in China from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().